Starting with the ‘Super Ape Star’ in 2003, for two decades, adidas and BAPE® have made their mark in culture with a series of instantly recognizable collaborations. Now, coinciding with the Japanese brand’s 30th anniversary and the 20th anniversary of their partnership, the Three Stripes and the iconic label have come together once again for a year-long celebration including five unique and highly anticipated product drops.
Source: adidas Originals and BAPE® Celebrate 20 Years of Collaboration
As Nike sues BAPE, adidas celebrates the brand’s 30th anniversary. adidas is in a position where every collab, no matter how long it has been in the pipeline, is seen as an attempt to replace Yeezy. It doesn’t matter that adidas has been working with BAPE for 20 years, outside of Japan this latest collaboration will be seen as an “attempt” at cool chasing. To be fair, this celebration does seem off kilter especially since BAPE is no longer the brand it was 20 years ago. Nike sees BAPE as an adversary. The brand has stores in the following locations in the U.S. and 30 locations total around the world. According to Nike the store locations listed below show the acceleration of a brand into a new territory.
- BAPE STORE® NEW YORK MADISON AVENUE
- BAPE STORE® NEW YORK SOHO
- BAPE STORE® LOS ANGELES
- BAPE STORE® MIAMI
This lawsuit delivers an interesting opportunity to analyze a difference in adidas’ branding and marketing strategies and Nike’s. Nike tends to make the collaborator supplementary. Looking through the images adidas has presented, the brand has allowed BAPE’s logo to drape the lateral and medial side of their iconic Campus 80. This makes BAPE ancillary and almost indistinguishable in hierarchy to adidas. There is never an instance where Nike would allow another brand’s logo to drape the side of their iconic Air Force 1 sneaker. This isn’t the first instance of adidas allowing a competitor’s brand to capture real estate on their trade dress. Most recently the Three Stripes has offered a Ronnie Fieg co-branded Clarks adapted crepe sole Stan Smith.
Nike Sues A Bathing Ape For Trademark Infringement (natlawreview.com) If Nike sees BAPE as a threat due to the brands continued growth in the U.S. with wholesale accounts and an expanding footprint, as adidas reels from the loss of Yeezy in the U.S. does a collaboration that allows for the expansion of BAPE’s presence make sense? If this project took 6-9 months to complete production and import of the collab into the U.S. and abroad, Ye hadn’t quite went ballistic and forced adidas’ hand in terminating the relationship. A BAPE collab in addition to the rollout of more Yeezy product would not have seemed problematic at all. Now, with every concept adidas brings to the public it’s seen as a last resort to recapture a share of the fashion and hype market. Nike’s approach is to never allow any partnership to be greater than the brand. Has adidas’ more casual attitude created a problem? What do you think of this collab? If you owned a sportswear company, would you co-brand in this manner?
Note: The North Face and Supreme co-brand, but both companies are owned by VF Corp.